A community of 30,000 US Transcriptionist serving Medical Transcription Industry

MT career alternatives

Posted: Jun 18, 2015

Hi all,

I'm wondering what my career alternatives are. I've been an MT for only a little over two years now but I have the beginning of arthritis and carpal tunnel in the same hand. I'm only 38 and was not anticipating this problem so early... I love what I do (minus the crappy pay) and I especially love working from home.

Can anyone suggest any alternatives that pay decent with my medical background? I do straight typing and have a pretty large dictionary in my autocorrect, but pain slows me down from doing as much as I could do. I thought of buying the Dragon speech recognition software to help take the pressure off my hands, but it's expensive and I don't know how well it would work. I also have the option of doing carpal tunnel surgery but I don't know if that would solve the problem either...

If anyone has any suggestions/recommendations, I would love to hear from you.

Thank you!

;

I tried Dragon speech. - SM

[ In Reply To ..]
I purchased Dragon Naturally Speaking 13 Premium to try this out about three months ago. I called the Nuance Company directly and spoke with a sales rep who ended up selling it to me for around $75 which included shipping. I knew there was a 30-day return policy, so I figured I had nothing to lose. It worked GREAT when it worked. I was really surprised at how well it recognized my voice. I would "echo" dictate whatever was being dictated. It worked great for perhaps two pages of dictation and then it froze up. I uninstalled it and installed again, over and over. I talked to some technical people at Nuance. No one could figure it out. I then checked out reviews on Amazon for this product and found out that 50% loved it because it worked great for them and 50% did not like it because it did not perform as it was supposed to. Needless to say, I was one of those who had a bad experience with it. I don't regret trying it.

I ended up calling Nuance before the 30 days and told them I wanted to return it. They ended up sending me an email with a prepaid return label that I could print out. So it literally cost me nothing to try it out.

So if you're going to try it, I would suggest saving the box and make sure you purchase it from a store or company that has a decent return policy just in case you're not happy with it.

I have 2 questions - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
What was your sound card and what brand of microphone did you use?

I had bilateral carpal tunnel releases - anonie

[ In Reply To ..]
I had bilateral carpal tunnel releases in the early 90s. I continued to type till just this year when I fully retired.

Up to you, but it took me a while to get my speed back up. There is a period of regaining things and my doctor, interestingly, gave me no exercises to do afterwards.

check with temp agencies - anon

[ In Reply To ..]
I worked for 6 months as a temp doing data entry for an insurance company. The #1 preference was for anyone with medical transcription experience. I think it paid $12.50/hour. Easiest job I ever had.

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